Hotels

Lower Slaughter Manor, in the Cotswolds village of Lower Slaughter, is described on its website as displaying “regal luxury”. Not just any old luxury; “regal luxury”. The village so perfectly fulfils the imagined idea we all have of the Cotswolds that it might have been created by Disney. It wasn’t; it’s real. And the drive through the Cotswolds to reach Lower Slaughter is as beautiful a drive as England has to offer.

Getting away from it all. It’s the ultimate goal in the travel game. But there’s something particularly appealing about getting away from it all, whilst only being only 45 minutes away from the “all” you’re getting away from.

This was very much the case when I spent a weekend at Stoke Place Hotel, one of six properties in new boutique hotel group, Dhillon Hotels.

Even if we are still choosing to take our main holidays abroad, lots of us are taking weekend breaks in the UK. And with accommodation of the quality offered by chains of chic boutique hotels and the grander country house properties, you can understand why.

One of the "boutique" brands to have revolutionised our weekending habits is the upscale Hotel du Vin chain, sister brand to the Malmaisons.

Almost exactly a year ago, my husband and I announced the birth of our darling first-born daughter in the JC. I'm therefore delighted to use the same paper to announce our latest arrival. But this time we're adopting - and it's a bear called Huggie.

We find that Gleneagles's stuffy reputation is unfounded

Staying at one of the world's best hotels with two, lively, accident-prone boys in tow is not everyone's idea of a relaxing break. Especially when the hotel in question is Scotland's renowned Gleneagles, a five-star deluxe property once associated with stuffy opulence and elitist golfers.

El Al, the national carrier of Israel, has been rated one of the top five long-haul airlines operating from the UK in a consumer survey published in Which? More than 200,000 Readers of the magazine responded to a postal survey, placing El Al ahead of any UK carrier. Criteria included quality of cabin staff, cleanliness and value for money.